Businessman Ishwar Galbaransingh is seeking an order from the Bahamas Supreme Court to prevent the disclosure of information relating to his financial affairs in that country to the T&T Government.
By Sherry Ann SinghHis action was filed in response to the Government?s request to the Bahamas government for financial disclosure relating to the Piarco airport project and the disposal of $28,898,720.65 obtained by Galbaransingh from the Airports Authority.
He said he was seeking the court?s protection ?against the infringement of my constitutional rights and the harassment and persecution directed against me because of my political views and affiliations.?
The State has alleged that the $28.9 million was obtained on July 27, 2000, by false pretences and eventually paid to or on behalf of Galbaransingh, former government ministers Brian Kuei Tung and Russell Huggins and Maritime Financial Group executive Steve Ferguson through a series of transactions carried out by Huggins, other people and companies.
The four men are among eight accused of conspiring to defraud the Airports Authority in the airport corruption preliminary inquiry being heard before a local magistrate.
Attorneys for the defence argued on Monday that the matter could not proceed unless the State brings to court all the documents seized from two of the accused companies.
However, on Tuesday, Appeal Court judge Ivor Archie granted the State an order preventing the DPP from disclosing the documents to the defence.
In its official request, the Government told the Bahamas its assistance was urgently required.
However, Galbaransingh wants the Bahamas court to declare that sections two and three of the Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 2000 were unconstitutional, invalid, null and void and of no effect.
In his affidavit filed on March 4, 2004, Galbaransingh said the act contravened his constitutional rights to due process, protection of the law and privacy.
He said it was well known that the $28.9 million was not obtained from the Airports Authority by false pretences as alleged by the Government.
Galbaransingh said the sum was awarded by former attorney general Keith Sobion, arbitrator in a dispute between Northern Construction Ltd and the Airports Authority over the construction contract, CP6.
The award was made after Galbaransingh filed for, and received, judicial review of the Deyalsingh committee which found that he had colluded with others.
High Court judge Margot Warner found that Deyalsingh had not adhered to the requirements of procedural fairness.
?By suppressing the aforesaid material information, the central authority of T&T has sought to disguise the fact that the alleged investigation, the laying of the charges and the alleged ongoing investigation are a political witch-hunt and fishing expedition and to mislead the central authority of the Bahamas as to the true purpose of the request,? said Galbaransingh.
He referred to the second paragraph of the request made by David West, of the Anti-Corruption Unit, which stated that he, Ferguson and Kuei Tung were financiers of the UNC?s election campaigns of 1995 and 2001.
The Bahamas government was also briefed on criminal charges against former prime minister Basdeo Panday for failing to disclose bank accounts held by him and his wife Oma in the National Westminster Bank in England.
Galbaransingh said that during investigations carried out by Lindquist and the Anti-Corruption Bureau, neither Lindquist nor any member of the bureau asked to interview him, nor informed him of any allegation of wrongdoing.
